Around 2010-ish Google was such a an interesting platform company. APIs and integration options abound. They were trying to create social media protocols with B

Around 2010-ish Google was such a an interesting platform company. APIs and integration options abound. They were trying to create social media protocols with Buzz & Salmon. Google was a gateway to cool, was giving developers reasons hand over fist to be excited. It just feels like Google has been on a long long slide into becoming just another product company. G+ promised eventually they would have APIs but actually shut down before that became a thing (aside from a single limited & sad read endpoint). Like everyone else, they gave up on chatbots & have 95% shut down the 3rd party custom actions & hub integrations system. Android has erected ever fiercer sandboxing, eroding more and more the possibility of apps & the ecosystem working together. We just had Google IO which is nominally a developer conference. But it was overheelmingly Google talking about how they are building AI into products. Tim O'Reilly's maxim used to be writ large & obvious, implicitly, on the walls of every product at Google. But today these words feel forgotten: "create more value than you capture." Having a teaming ecosystem of other developers and companies hacking with and extending & rolling with your shit is the sure-fire way to have fun. Every action you do is echoed back with a dozen fold excitement. Withdrawing into your own product cycles & planning & keeping tight ecosystem control is boring and lame.